FOUNDATIONSVOLUME 2 95solutions for blowing bubbles, paper towels for soaking water, types of salt
crystals for dissolving quickly, fabrics for muffling sound, and so on. In all
cases, investigable questions have to be identified, and decisions must be
made about the variable that should be changed, those variables that have
to be controlled, and what has to be measured. Students also have to
work out how to put these decisions into operation and how to interpret
the results.
Good written assessment tasks are less easy to create than are
hands-on activities, but can be adapted from published examples.
Giving Feedback to Students
As we have already noted, students are ultimately responsible for their
own learning. Thus, if the assessment information is going to be used
formatively—for helping learning—then it is the student who is the user,
and the student who needs the information.
Giving a student feedback about a teacher’s assessment is an important
matter to consider, since it can have both positive and negative effects on
learning. For feedback to have a positive effect, it should not incorporate
comparisons with other students; that is, each student should be given
feedback in relation to his or her progress. Further, the teacher should
avoid making judgments about the student’s ability. Comments should be
closely related to the work and how it can be improved. For example, if a
teacher finds that a student has some results about how far away different
sounds can be heard, and those results clearly indicate that a fair test has
not been made, a teacher might comment, “You have some interesting
results there. Are you quite sure that you kept things the same for each of
the different sounds that you tried? Why don’t you check up on that and
see if your results are the same?” This would help learning far more than
commenting that the results were wrong, or, indeed, just saying “fine” and
not using the work to show the student how to improve it.
Negative effects tend to follow when there is an over-reliance on
rewards and competition among students. Research shows that this
results in students focusing on those aspects of work that are rewarded;
those who don’t get rewards often settle for just enough to “get by” (Black
and Wiliam, 1998). There is also the danger that low marks may be inter-
preted by students as meaning that they lack ability, and this may lead
them to consider that nothing they can do will change this.
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